John Knefel: Meet the Contractors Turning America's

police into a paramilitary force. The national security state has an annual budget of around $1 trillion. Of that huge pile of money, large amounts go to private companies the federal government awards contracts to. Some, like Lockheed Martin or Boeing, are household names, but many of the contractors fly just under the public's radar. What follows, are three companies you should know about, because some of them can learn a lot about you with their spy technologies. L3 Communications: L3 is everywhere. Those night vision goggles the JSOC team in Zero Dark Thirty uses? That's L3. The new machines that are replacing the naked scanners at the airport? That's L3. Torture at Abu Graib? A former subsidiary of L3 was recently ordered to pay $5.28 million to 71 Iraqis who had been held in the awful prison. Oh, and drones? L3 is on it. Reprieve, a UK based human rights organization, earlier this month wrote on its Web site: "L-3 Communications is one of the main subcontractors involved with production of the US's lethal Predator, since the inception of the program. Predators are used by the CIA to kill 'suspected militants' and terrorize entire populations in Pakistan and Yemen. Drone strikes have escalated under the Obama administration and 2013 has already seen six strikes in the two countries." Unsurprisingly, L3 Communications is well connected beyond the national security community. Its chief financial officer recently spoke at Goldman Sachs, at what the financial titan hilariously refers to as a "fireside chat."L3 also supplies local law enforcement with its night vision products, and makes a license plate recognition (LPR) device, a machine with disturbing implications. LPR can be mounted on cop cruisers, or statically positioned at busy intersections, and can run potentially thousands of license plates through law enforcement databases in a matter of hours. In some parts of the country, LPR readers can track your location for miles. As the Wall Street Journal noted, surveillance of even "mundane" activities of people not accused of any crime, is now "the default rather than the exception."